5280 Magazine: Should Coloradans Be Worried About Tick-Borne Illnesses?
The deadliest tick-borne disease has Colorado roots. Powassan virus—which is fatal in 10 percent of cases and leaves half of its victims with brain damage—hasn’t been detected in a Coloradan. But scientists first isolated it from a tick found along the Cache la Poudre River in 1952, six years before the first known human case (in Ontario), says Powassan expert Dr. Gregory Ebel of Colorado State University.